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The United Nations The Role of the United Nations Our relations with this organization have always been close and positive, although we live in a region that has suffered from instability and conflict for long decades. We have always conformed with the charter and noble principles of the organization, and we have cooperated with it to achieve its objectives. Address to the United Nations General
Assembly on the Occasion of the
Fifty years have passed since the United Nations was founded. During this time, some of its member countries have undergone fundamental changes. This is a good moment to review the organization, structure and systems of its institutions, which regulate the nature and conditions of membership in it, so that the organization may reflect today’s world, as opposed to that of fifty years ago. This is essential for the United Nations to rejuvenate itself and fulfill its role with efficiency, capability and credibility, that reinforces the faith of its members in its principles and ability to cope with the challenges before it. Address to the United Nations General
Assembly on the Occasion of the
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is the joint responsibility of all nations to address themselves to the hot spots in Asia, Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, with the aim of preserving man’s life, and culture and achievements. Who but the United Nations, which represents man’s hope to live free from the threat and scourge of war, is more qualified to assume this awesome responsibility? Address to the Fortieth Session of the
United Nations General Assembly
We observed this month the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Armed with the lessons of that war, and in its determination to ensure that it would not happen again and that all future conflicts would be resolved peacefully, the community of nations established the organization to achieve that goal—the United Nations. World consent and support was unanimous. The ideals, the principles, the framework and the intentions were exemplary, indeed, noble. The principles established to govern national conduct embodied a standard of values, universal in their acceptance and in their application. The new world order was to be based on justice, the inviolability of human rights, the illegality of conquest, the inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts. A new world order was born; but the child’s growth has been severely stunted by self-serving parents. A superior concept has produced inferior results. We all share responsibility for the failure. Many in this world have been the victims of its consequences. Address to the American Enterprise
Institute
If, as the creation of the United Nations suggests, our hope for more freedom, more cooperation, and what we often refer to as a better world, and even survival, lies in adherence to mutually agreed ways of dealing with one another, then we must find better ways than we now have to bring our combined weight of opinion quickly and effectively to bear upon whatever nation transgresses these agreed interrelationships. I do not suggest that there is anything new in this idea; it is simply the idea of government by law applied to the actions of sovereign states. Yet to me, as the leader of a small nation much beset by outside pressures, it is a concept which is worthy of reemphasis at this time, for I believe that it is in the successful application of this idea that the survival and progress of my country and so many other small nations will in the end be decided. The United Nations is the only instrument which is capable of applying this idea successfully, and should it fail in general to fulfill this responsibility, the small nations will perforce have to solve their problems in their own way. This would be the worst kind of retrogression towards the kind of “might makes right” world which we have for so long struggled to leave behind us. Address to the United Nations General
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